"The ship looks like a wash house," Fuller commented, coming to Cavendish's side. He waited eagerly.
Cavendish was looking again to the west.
"We were blown back toward land," Fuller said. "Thank God."
"We've been blown all over hell," Cavendish said. But he was smiling. He lowered the glass. He handed it to Fuller. "Land," he said.
After all these weeks, they had sighted land. It was almost March. In a few weeks, incredibly, it would be spring in England. Down here, it would be fall.
Fuller was staring through the glass, his face deep with creases. "Land," he breathed. "By God, sir, land!"
It was bare and desolate. The Galeon was in forty degrees. Dav by day she haled southward; she showed as much canvas as she dared, and day by day it grew colder. On the eighteenth of March the weary Galleon put into Port Desire. And in the harbor, riding quietly, was the Desire at anchor.
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It was bitter cold, already. Cavendish buttoned his leather jacket tight against the wind, as he stood on deck with Pretty. They could hear Moon's voice shouting orders above the wind, and the crew, aloft or on deck, raised their voices to cheer the Desire, as she dipped her flags and fired a welcoming broadside, to greet the flagship sailing slowly into port.
The anchors splashed overboard into the black water. A flock of birds wheeled upward from a lonely rock, and great breakers crashed unceasingly across the northern shoals that bordered the harbor.
"She found port, sir," Pretty said lovingly, looking across the narrow strip of water that separated them from the Desire. "Here comes Captain Davis."
They saw Davis' figure standing in the stern of his longboat. He waved his cap, they heard him shout to them, and Cavendish shouted back. The crew cheered, wildly, because death had sailed with them many weeks, and they knew that it would follow them relentlessly, through the seas ahead. For a few days, now, they were in safe harbor, forbidding harbor, but safe. And this port was their port. Their Captain had discovered it, named it after the ship that rode close to them. He knew these waters. They looked up to the deck on which he stood, and watched him come running down to greet Davis. Davis brought penguins, plucked, for stewing. He brought a few smelts.
"We've been catching them with hooks made out of pins," he said.
Cavendish looked into the basket at the meager pile of small fish. Standing there, on the deck of the Galeon, here in the gaunt port he himself had discovered, he smiled somberly.
"Come below," he said. "We'll eat and talk."
Davis and he said little during the meal. Cavendish ate the smelts, bones and all, crushing them between his teeth. The officers talked, cheerfully. Moon told how bad the storms had been; how much rigging and sail had been lost, and all their boats.
Cavendish had finished eating; there was no more to eat. He said, as an end to Moon's tale, "We have no more sail than masts. No victuals, no ground tackling, no more cordage than is over your head, Davis."
The cabin was cold. The lamp swung overhead. Ice bumped against the sides of the ship.
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Davis said, "We are so near the Pacific."
No one spoke. This meeting, after months of lonely sailing, was now a time for reckoning.
"There are no more sails than masts," Cavendish repeated quietly.
He rested his hands on the table; his eyes swept the circle of officers, noting them carefully, noting their thin faces, the circled eyes. Pretty very badly wanted to say something, but he shut his lips tight. Moon tried a cheerful grin; he spoke.
"I'm ready to go on, Captain," he said. He rattled the pair of dice he had in his hands.
"Don't bother to roll them, Moon," Cavendish said. "It's not going to be based on a throw of the dice. The Galeon cannot go on. She must turn back."
Pretty's eyes looked startled.
"I," said Cavendish slowly, "am going to return to my old cabin aboard the Desiie. I'm going to sail her to the Pacific again."
Through Pretty's mind flashed a picture. A picture of a warm sunny beach where the south wind blew gently. "California," he said, aloud.
Cavendish met his eyes. Cavendish smiled a little. "I shall not return to England," he went on evenly, "but with me, aboard the Desire, I'll take only those who want to go."
Pretty said, "I'd like to go, sir," and even as he said it he knew what the answer would be. A hopelessness fell on Pretty; he bit his lip. His hands were trembling, and he told himself it was hunger that did this to him. "Captain Cavendish!" he said.
Cavendish said, "You are needed, Pretty. You and Moon and Fuller are needed. The Galeon must return. You will be responsible for the lives of a hundred and fifty men. I take only forty with me."
Pretty heard his voice go on. He heard him say that they must catch penguins and dry them. He heard the rations issued for the men who were to sail on the Desire: six ounces of meal a day. Pretty looked at Cavendish's broad shoulders; he couldn't live on that, not a man who weighed as much as his Captain.
Then Davis said, "I shall sail with you, Captain Cavendish." His face was tired and drawn. It was not late, but sleep was one compensation for hunger. Cavendish went out on deck with Davis, to bid him good night, him and his officers. He watched their boat pull away to the Desire.
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"I'll be aboard her tomorrow myself," he said.
Pretty said nothing. The wind blew. The sky overhead was dark, moonless, starless. A single light shone from the Desire.
"We'll sail as soon as possible," Cavendish went on.
Pretty leaned wearily against the rail. He could not think of anything except the man beside him.
"In England, you'll have an heir by now, Pretty. It's time you saw your child."
"I'd rather go on," Pretty said.
"I'm sorry," Cavendish said.
"I can't forgive you for it," Pretty said evenly. "Moon feels as I do."
Cavendish did not answer. A lonely gull mewed sharply over their heads. The tides of Port Desire, the great surging tides, slapped against the ship like waves. Across the black water the single light aboard the Desire shone out. Pretty knew that after a few days he might never see her again.
Chapter XLII
The entrance of the straits of Magellan is bounded on the north by Cape Virgins. It is a great broad opening in the land, standing in fifty-two and a half degrees. It is the end of the continent of America, the entrance to the Pacific, one hundred and ten leagues in length. On the sixth of April the Desire sighted Cape Virgins.
The weather was fair. The wind was moderate. The Desire entered the Straits.
The rolling tides here dropped forty feet at their ebb. Along the shore, rock thrust upward, and even as the Desire sailed by, the water ebbed out and a sandy beach lazily threw itself outward into the blue water. Leaning on the rail, John Davis watched the shore line.
Cavendish was beside him. The two men had just come out on deck. "Look your fill," Cavendish said, "for the land will drop away for a few hours."
They had just come from the charts. Davis spent much time studying Cavendish's charts. They talked of nothing else, in these last weeks; they talked of nothing but seas and shores and currents. And food. Davis stared down at the swift water.
"The channel is wide here," Davis observed, "but, Jesu, man, what currents!"
"They run as much as eight knots," Cavendish said. His voice was tired. He had told Davis that before, he knew, but it was hard to remember.
"We need speed," Davis said, not expecting an answer. They had food for two weeks, a little food—enough, perhaps, to last. Only one man had died since they had left Port Desire. Again he glanced at the man beside him. He had expected to know him better in these last weeks. He had expected the man Cavendish to emerge. He hadn't. The wide shoulders were very thin, even under the